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Educated people used to construe the slurring of words (reducing, making a substitution for, or omitting sounds that would normally occur in an utterance) as a sign of an evasive and shifty person. But now even educated speakers are unwittingly imitating this indolent habit. Three examples: a newsreader on a Vermont television station calls the state “Vermuh”; a saleswoman in a large title company calls a title commitment a “tile cmihmih”; a professional actor in a Wal-Mart commercial calls the company “Wuh-Mah.” And to think we used to argue about the propriety of dropping the g from -ing.

This is a list in which I collect slurs as I hear them. I’m sure you have heard many of these, plus many others that I have missed. I update this list from time to time.